Frankly, the Bolt offers me absolutely NOTHING of value over previous versions of TiVo, and in some ways it is much worse. In my opinion, my two S3 boxes are actually better. It is unbelievable that anyone would have the nerve to call this thing a "Unified Entertainment System"!
Yes, most of the advertised features do seem to work, and the idea that I can just pop in a larger drive without having to play geek games seems a little attractive, but even that is offset by the much greater heat generated by this ugly little box along with the need to use a 2.5" drive.
My needs and desires for a DVR are actually pretty simple, and the Bolt does not meet them. Of course I want to record and play programs - that seems to mostly work, but the Rovi Reaming we have all been through makes even some of that questionable - hard to tell what is caused by Bad Rovi and what is just Bad Bolt. For example - can't search for movies like we always have done. I think a lot of the UI on the Bolt is nasty and terrible.
Probably the only other thing I really want my DVR to do is to play back my archived recordings in some form or another, and for this, the Bolt gets any grade I could give it that is worse than an F! I cannot plug in an external drive and play video files, and I cannot even move those same files from my computers over to the Bolt drive for watching (having to move them, like with the older TiVos is a bad option, but the Bolt can't even do that!). I EXPECT to be able to see those files on my computers (in ANY standard format) and stream them to the Bolt, but that is absolutely not a viable option either!
And don't even think about suggesting Plex to me - what a totally HORRIBLE POS that is! First of all, it cannot even recognize most of what I consider common archiving formats - they even come right out and say they do not and never expect to support any type of "image" files. Furthermore, any type of a server is totally incompatible with lots of long term storage. I have somewhere north of 10 TB of disks with music and video, and I am not about to keep all those disks constantly connected and spinning to ANYTHING. And even if I did, the Plex UI is virtually impossible to use when it has to deal with thousands of entries.
And then there is the Plex app on the Bolt - HA!!! Slow and clunky cannot even begin to describe the pain of trying to use that. I simply tried to bring up my music library and find a particular album to play - my only option was to sort by letter and then slowly and painfully move down the long list one entry at a time looking for the right one. Let's not even start to discuss why I would want to have to use my TV to find and play music when I should be able to push it from my computer to my new "unified entertainment system". But music playback is not something I really want to do with a Tivo - I just use that to illustrate how terrible the Plex option is.
So this thing cannot reasonably stream ANY media content I own, and it cannot play ANY local content that it did not record. Even worse, if it DID record something and I moved it off with TiVo Desktop, the stupid brain-dead Bolt cannot even see it and move it back!!! Maybe all the internet streaming that TiVo seems so proud about has some value to you, but it sure does not for me - I do not want it and will not use it.
Bah-Humbug!
Yes, most of the advertised features do seem to work, and the idea that I can just pop in a larger drive without having to play geek games seems a little attractive, but even that is offset by the much greater heat generated by this ugly little box along with the need to use a 2.5" drive.
My needs and desires for a DVR are actually pretty simple, and the Bolt does not meet them. Of course I want to record and play programs - that seems to mostly work, but the Rovi Reaming we have all been through makes even some of that questionable - hard to tell what is caused by Bad Rovi and what is just Bad Bolt. For example - can't search for movies like we always have done. I think a lot of the UI on the Bolt is nasty and terrible.
Probably the only other thing I really want my DVR to do is to play back my archived recordings in some form or another, and for this, the Bolt gets any grade I could give it that is worse than an F! I cannot plug in an external drive and play video files, and I cannot even move those same files from my computers over to the Bolt drive for watching (having to move them, like with the older TiVos is a bad option, but the Bolt can't even do that!). I EXPECT to be able to see those files on my computers (in ANY standard format) and stream them to the Bolt, but that is absolutely not a viable option either!
And don't even think about suggesting Plex to me - what a totally HORRIBLE POS that is! First of all, it cannot even recognize most of what I consider common archiving formats - they even come right out and say they do not and never expect to support any type of "image" files. Furthermore, any type of a server is totally incompatible with lots of long term storage. I have somewhere north of 10 TB of disks with music and video, and I am not about to keep all those disks constantly connected and spinning to ANYTHING. And even if I did, the Plex UI is virtually impossible to use when it has to deal with thousands of entries.
And then there is the Plex app on the Bolt - HA!!! Slow and clunky cannot even begin to describe the pain of trying to use that. I simply tried to bring up my music library and find a particular album to play - my only option was to sort by letter and then slowly and painfully move down the long list one entry at a time looking for the right one. Let's not even start to discuss why I would want to have to use my TV to find and play music when I should be able to push it from my computer to my new "unified entertainment system". But music playback is not something I really want to do with a Tivo - I just use that to illustrate how terrible the Plex option is.
So this thing cannot reasonably stream ANY media content I own, and it cannot play ANY local content that it did not record. Even worse, if it DID record something and I moved it off with TiVo Desktop, the stupid brain-dead Bolt cannot even see it and move it back!!! Maybe all the internet streaming that TiVo seems so proud about has some value to you, but it sure does not for me - I do not want it and will not use it.
Bah-Humbug!
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire